COZY COCO SWEATSHIRT

I‘m in serious love with my apartment; it was the luckiest of Craigslist scores. On the top floor of a beautiful old Montreal triplex it has all the classic architectural details of my Villeray neighborhood: stained glass windows, hardwood floors, a textured plaster relief finish in the living room, and blessedly, rent control. Oh and one other thing: uninsulated floors. It’s drafty and cold as hell in here. That is, if hell was cold and made you want to wear slippers and swaddle yourself in Hudson’s Bay blankets and have a cat on your lap at all times for use as a living hot water bottle. My home-alone attire mostly consists of weird shawls and old pilly cashmere sweaters and Hudson pants. It was time to up my sweater game, stat, if only to avoid the raised eyebrow of monsieur for the de-rigeur giant pilly-sweatered marshmallow look I’d otherwise be rocking (the blessing and curse of French men is that they always notice what you’re wearing, and are not shy about saying “uh, non“).

So, when I saw Tilly’s squishy Coco sweatshirt a few months ago I went “mais oui mais oui mais oui“. This is one of my TNT patterns (see here and here) and I was really jazzed to give it a winter vibe. I had 5 yards of this fleecy grey marle in my stash waiting for a new project (yes, grey marle is my new favourite colour – it goes with everything, even pink velvet leggings) and one night in February when I was feeling too antsy to just relax at the end of the day with Broad City, I whipped this little number up. 3 hours, tops.

As per Tilly’s suggestion I lengthened the cowl piece by about 3″. I serged everything except for the side seams. Since I wanted to do a split hem at the hip, I just pressed the seam allowances flat. Fleece doesn’t unravel and the fabric is thick so it helped to reduce bulk. The funnel and hem were secured with a simple double needle stitch. Easy peasy.

Needless to say, I’ve been wearing this A LOT. I love how the classic, gamine vibe of the Coco pattern elevates the fabric into something a little more chic. I feel much less bummy wearing this than my Shack Up Inn sweatshirt. The beauty of sewing? It can make even your laziest clothes look elegant.

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Hi! I'm Heather Lou, a pattern designer and sewing educator for the modern maker. At Closet Case Patterns, we transform your imagination into step-by-step implementation that helps you create a wardrobe you love - not one you're limited to buying off the rack.

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